The neighborhoods

Five small worlds within walking distance.

We host the ceremony in Bunkyō, a residential ward in north Tokyo that almost no guidebook covers. The five places below are all within a half-hour walk of the tea room. None of them feel like Tokyo as the brochure imagines it. That's the point.

The tea room

Sengoku

千石

The quiet next door. Old timber houses, narrow alleys, and the residential rhythm of Bunkyō — this is where the tea room sits.

8 min walk from the tea room

Hakusan

白山

A university hill with a hidden Edo-era shrine. In June, three thousand hydrangeas turn the slope blue and white.

12 min walk from the tea room

Sugamo

巣鴨

Tokyo's grandmothers come here for healing salt and red underwear. Locals call it Harajuku for the elderly. We mean that as a compliment.

18 min walk from the tea room

Gokokuji

護国寺

A 1681 Shogun's-mother temple, the rare WWII survivor in this part of Tokyo. The graves of three Urasenke tea masters are kept here.

22 min walk from the tea room

Zoshigaya

雑司ヶ谷

Sōseki and Lafcadio Hearn rest in the same cemetery. The pace of the streets has not changed much since they walked them.